These Elf on the Shelf Lemon Snap Sugar cookies are a refreshing variation to the traditional sugar cookie!  This is honestly one of my FAVORITE 12 Days of Christmas Cookies recipes 🙂

So, without further ado, I’m going to give you the Lemon Snap Sugar Cookies Recipe….and then show you how to make them into Elf on the Shelf Cookies!!

Ingredients:

• 1 cup softened, unsalted butter
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 eggs whisked
• ½ tsp vanilla
• 1 tsp lemon extract
• 3 ½ cups flour
• ½ tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp baking soda
• ½ tsp salt

In large mixing bowl, begin by creaming together butter, sugar, eggs, vanilla, and lemon extract.

In a separate bowl, mix remaining ingredients together.

Gradually add dry ingredients to creamed mixture, blending well after each addition.

Form 2 balls of dough, wrap in plastic wrap, and flatten into discs approximately 2″ thick.  Refrigerate for 1-2 hours.

Heat oven to 400 degrees.

Roll dough out on well floured surface to approximately 1/4″ thick (slightly thicker for a more moist, soft cookie).  Cut into desired shapes.

Bake in preheated oven for 4-6 minutes.

Allow cookies to cool completely before decorating with your favorite icing!

Bing Smart Search is like this whole new way of finding information, images, recipes and inspiration from any Windows 8.1 device.  With Smart Search, you don’t have to open an app or a window, just swipe from the right to open the search bar or start typing in Windows and you can find your doc, photo, app, link, information,images…the list goes on and on.  When a web page comes up, you can preview the content before clicking on it.  With Bing, you get a “Smart” summary of results. For a variety of popular searches, you’ll see a rich, visual summary of the most relevant information from across the web and apps. We’ve all gone to sites that matched search terms only to find the content is not relevant to what you were looking for, right?   Bing Smart Search is how I found inspiration for many of the cookie recipes shared in the 12 Days of Christmas Cookies Feature!

To make them into Elf on the Shelf Cookies: 

I used a snowman cutter and cut the hat and top off at an angle.

Then, using icing, pipe the trim of your Elf’s hat

Fill in the face with a flesh-colored icing (and honestly, white is fine), and then fill the hat in with red icing

Add some white nonpareils (or sugar crystals) to make that icing look more fluffy

Pipe in your hair and eyes, adding a little pink to the cheeks if you want for some color.  Some shimmery sugar will make the features stand out.  Using that same flesh colored icing again, pipe some icing into little ears for your Elf.

Check out our fun Elf on the Shelf Ideas !! Over 30 and counting!